This week Wednesday was another great Fun Day at our house. We had a house full of kiddos, and we enjoyed a morning of reading, play dough, and painting. The mess is unbelievable at the end of the morning, but it’s SO MUCH FUN!
We started our morning by reading The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. It’s such a sweet, classic children’s book, one that all children seem to enjoy. I’ve been reading this to my children since Alex was two, and all three of my kids have enjoyed this book every winter since then.
A little boy named Peter wakes up to discover that it snowed heavily over night. He bundles up, heads out into the cold, and explores the snow. Before heading into the house, he forms a snowball to save for later, puts it in his pocket, and heads inside. So cute! (It reminds me of the Shel Silverstein poem about the snowball that wet the bed!)
First, we made two double-batches of white, sparkly play dough. The first was a traditional flour-based play dough with a sprinkle of rainbow glitter added to the water. One child commented that this play dough is not a TRUE white, so we also made a double batch of corn starch play dough. We hoped it would be WHITER, which it was, but the texture was crumbly and not nearly as moldable as the flour play dough. We’ll stick with the flour dough from now on!
I showed the littler ones how to roll balls from the play dough, and I set out some toothpicks so they could stack the balls to make a snowman. They had such fun! After that, they used snowman cookie cutters and just had some free play with the dough. I think the play dough fun lasted for over an hour!
After this, we had marshmallows for a snack. (Snowballs!) I thought about making hot cocoa to go along with it, but I figured the marshmallows were sugary enough. With a house full of kiddos, I really don’t need sugar to add to the crazy!
Our other activity for the day was marshmallow painting. I’ve never done this with kids before, and it was LOADS of fun! We had white paint on paper plates, and I gave each child one large marshmallow and a few small marshmallows. I showed them how to use the marshmallows to make snowmen, snowflakes, and snow on the ground.
Once they completed their paintings, I sprinkled silver glitter over the top. (Oh, the glitter! My kitchen may never recover!) We let these dry for about an hour before drawing faces and decorating with scrapbook paper hats and scarves.
(I drew the faces and hands for younger kiddos…)
If we’d had the time, I would have made nut free snowball cookies instead of eating marshmallows for our snack. It just wouldn’t fit into our busy morning, though, so we’ll have to save that for next year’s reading of The Snowy Day!
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